When Ed Greene speaks, people listen. OK, so I adapted that line from an advertising slogan, but when the genial CBS4 weatherman advised guests at the Colorado Symphony Ball to “party like rock stars and bid like Bach stars,” they did just that.
Especially trustees Dick Saunders and Bob Newman. Saunders, who made his fortune in construction, beat out other contenders by offering $43,000 for a flute with James Galway’s signature engraved on it; he also was high bidder (to the tune of $12,000) on a trip for two aboard the former American Orient Express, now knows as GrandLuxe Rail Journeys. He can choose from one of three destinations: National Parks of the West, the Great Northwest and Rockies or the Rockies, Sierras and Napa.
Newman, one of the founders of software giant JD Edwards, prevailed in spirited bidding for the gala’s centerpiece item: a beautifully restored 1931 Packard 8-26 sedan donated by the Carolyn Longmire family. And, along with Erna Butler, he also paid $15,000 to sponsor Youth Concert scholarships in the coming season.
Carolyn Longmire, her son and daughter donated the car to the CSO in memory of their late husband and father, David Longmire, who had purchased the car in 1964. An 11-year frame-off restoration by Lordship Antique Auto in Stratford, Ct., followed.
“Our family is donating the Packard because my husband enjoyed the symphony and we wanted to do as much as we could for the orchestra,” Carolyn said. “The CSO’s education and outreach programs are so important to the community, and it is necessary that our youth receive the opportunity to attend music programs, particularly as this is a time when schools are cutting funding for arts and music.”
The ball, chaired by Pat Vincent and her husband, Bob Collawn, raised a record $891,000 for outreach and education. Vincent is the president and chief executive officer of Public Service Co. of Colorado, an Xcel Energy company; her husband is chairman of RocHenge.
Festivities took place at the Hyatt Regency Convention Center.
Before sitting down to a filet mignon and tiramisu dinner, the 650 guests socialized over cocktails and a silent auction in the ballroom foyer; the evening wrapped up with dancing to the Harry James Orchestra.
The 2007 Jeff Bradley Young Musician Award, named for The Denver Post’s late critic-at-large, was presented to 17-year-old violinist Jessica Oddie of Fairview High School in Boulder. She has studied violin since she was 5 and will spend the summer touring Argentina and Uruguay with the Denver Young Artists Orchestra and participating in an intensive violin study program in upstate New York.
She accepted the Jeff Bradley Award from The Post’s entertainment editor, Ed Smith.
Pianist Trevor Hale, a freshman at the University of Colorado at Boulder, also performed.Cy Harvey, chairman of the Colorado Symphony Association board, joined CEO Doug Adams in praising both the orchestra and its supporters.
“This community and this orchestra deserve each other: they’re both great,” Harvey said as Adams noted that “This absolutely magnificent evening would not have happened without the wonderful people with whom I am blessed to work.”
Guests included the vice chair of the board, Kevin Duncan, and his wife, Leanne; Katie Stapleton and Patrick Coulson; Sally and Gordon Rippey; Arlene and Barry Hirschfeld; Betty Lynn and Dennis Jackson; Barbara and Dennis Baldwin; Dianne Eddolls and Glenn Jones; Alby Segal and Katherine Gold; Debi Tryon with son, Ben, who does marketing and public relations for HD Net; Basil Vendryes, secretary of the symphony board; and Jane and Jim Wiltshire.Brian and Payne Williams Heselton were telling friends of their move to the house in which she grew up on Cranmer Park, while Lee Clayton Roper and her husband, Robert, said they’d just downsized from a Bonnie Brae house to a Cherry Creek North townhome. Meanwhile, Barbara Grogan was positively radiant as she introduced her fiance, Michael Sims of St. Louis.
Other familiar faces in the crowd: Julie and Larry Gelfond, Craig Fleishman, Christine Benero, Sharon Linhart, Sue and Louis Clinton, Heather Kemper Miller, Char Campbell, auctioneer Gary Corbett, and Stacey Donaldson, the newest member of the CBS4 weather team who served as Greene’s co-emcee.

Pictures from the Colorado Symphony Ball are at denverpost.com/SeenGallery.

Denver Post Society Editor Joanne Davidson’s column appears every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday in the Scene section. She can be reached at 303-809-1314 or jmdpost@aol.com.

Study after study has shown that when it comes to charitable fundraisers, Denver has more per capita than any comparably sized city in the nation. Joanne Davidson has been covering them for The Denver Post since 1985, coming here from her native California where she'd spent the previous seven years as San Francisco bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report magazine.